I believe there's a whole online forum dedicated to this sort of thing... styleforum or something. personally I think black just doesn't get in the way. it's a lot opportunity to coordinate but tehre's nothing wrong with that. like a white shirt.

Cheap brown leather looks terrible as it ages but I have had really good luck with cheap black leather--since it stays black all over (rather than getting gradations of dark and light brown), the low quality leather usually looks fine. Even CG is better in black (although brown CG is like the worst thing ever)...

As such, my primary beaters are dirt-cheap black wingtips with rubber soles which are great for rainy days or a bar where they are likely to be abused. The only problem is that it is hard to find cheap, non-corrected-grain shoes that don't have hideous detailing or an ugly shape...